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Oct. 22, 2024

George Rohlfing - Owner of BTI, Brookline Transportation Co., Inc.

George Rohlfing - Owner of BTI, Brookline Transportation Co., Inc.
George Rohlfing - Owner of BTI, Brookline Transportation Co., Inc.
Winning Business Radio
George Rohlfing - Owner of BTI, Brookline Transportation Co., Inc.

George Rohlfing is owner of Brookline Transportation Company, Inc. a family owned & operated residential & commercial moving company headquartered in Hanover, Mass.

Starting in the moving business in the late 70s, starting as a driver/van...

George Rohlfing is owner of Brookline Transportation Company, Inc. a family owned & operated residential & commercial moving company headquartered in Hanover, Mass.

Starting in the moving business in the late 70s, starting as a driver/van operator and running moving crews within three weeks. In the early 1980s, he bought BTI.

Specialties include: lab moves, computer and electronics moves, trade show moves, furniture and fixture assembly and disassembly, customized crating, storage and more.

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0:00 The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability explicitor implies shall be extended to W four cy Radio or it's employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W FOURCY Radio. Churchill said, those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. Kevin Helen N believes that certainly applies to business. Welcome to Winning Business Radio here at W four CY Radio. That's W four cy dot com and now your host, Kevin Helen Thanks everybody for joining in again today.

0:55 I am Kevin Helenan and welcome back to Winning Business TV and Radio on W four cy dot com. We're streaming live on talkfor tv dot com, and of course we're on Facebook and that's at Winning Business Radio. And of course we're available after the live show in podcast form on tons of platforms wherever you go for your podcast content. We're there, YouTube, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple again, all of those platforms and more. The mission of winning business radio and TV, excuse me, as regular listeners and viewers know, is to offer insights and advice, to help people avoid the mistakes of others, right to learn best practices. Those are the how tos, the what too's, the what not tos, and to be challenged and hopefully to be inspired by the successes of others. Those are consultants, authors, coaches, advisors, business owners, founders, entrepreneurs.

1:49 People with expertise. But you know, virtually every successful person I've ever had a chance to talk to has had some form of failure in their lives and careers. I say it every week. While we all have the our knee skin once in a while, I'm driven to keep those scrapes from needing major surgery. Let's endeavor to learn from history so we don't repeat it. I've spent the better part of my career equipping businesses to grow from solopreneurs to small to medium sized companies all the way up to the fortune fifty. And I've seen a lot of those companies up close and personal, and a lot of them win and to varying degrees. I've seen some fail. I've had the opportunity to rub elbows with some of the highest performing people around and with some people who probably should have found other professions. Right. So, in my own businesses, I've had lots of success, but some failures too, And I like to think I've learned a lot of those lessons from experience. So you're going to hear from me some opinions and insights, etc. But you're definitely going to hear from really interesting and cool guys like today's guest.

2:46 His name is George Rolfing, owner of BTI Brookline Transportation Company, Incorporated. It's a family owned and operated residential and commercial moving company headquartered in Hanover, Massachusetts. Here's his bio. His teeth in the moving business with Larkin Movers and Maple Movers in the late nineteen seventies, starting out as a driver van operator and running moving crews within three weeks. In the early nineteen eighties, he bought the BTI. Under his mentorship, the company became a Mayflower franchise and expanded its offerings beyond residential and commercial moves. Some of those specialty moves include lab moves, computer and electronics moves, trade show moves, furniture and fixture assembly and disassembly, customized creating, storaging, and more to meet the demands of the growing life science and medical community in Greater Boston and beyond. Interestingly enough, George created labmovers dot Com as a specialty division of his company. With that specialation specialization in plugin transport. Lab Movers has moved the lab of Nobel prizewinner Jack Hope.

3:53 I say this correctly, doctor Jack Zostak, formerly of Harvard Medical now the University of Chicago. Other lab relocations include a move of rare butterfly collection from UC Berkeley to the Marine Biological Labs some of you know in Woodshole, Mass very cool place, and the relocation of a win tunnel from Harvard to UC Davis. George is a longtime member of the Mass Movers Association, serving as it's president from twenty twelve to twenty fourteen. He's certified by the American Moving in Storage Association as an office and Industrial consultant and as a moving consultant. George's numerous awards, including BBB's twenty sixteen Award winner, the Million Dollar Plus Award in twenty sixteen the Mayflower Excellence in Sales Award Outstanding Service Award, and BTI is a proud member of the Mass Biotech Consul Mary. George continues the tradition of BTI being a family owned and operated in business, as his wife Karen, and sons Jared and his wife Michaela and Jordan all work in the business. George, Welcome to Winning Business Radio.

4:56 Thank you very much. Kevin, thank you for the invite. You're welcome. I appreciate you you're taking the time to be here. Tell us about the family first, Karen. Tell us a bit bit about Karen and also about her involvement in the business. Okay, my wife and I met when we were, you know, in high school. And I love that we've been together for that long. So prior to twenty years then, yeah, yeah, twenty years is right, Karen. So we dated for six years prior to getting married, and and you know, we've been married since nineteen seventy nine. And her and I are we work together in our family and we've worked together in our business.

5:44 What is her role with jobs does she performed within the company. Karen's the office manager at the company. She manages the office. She does the accounts, payable accounts, receivable billing, all of those types of things that happened every day behind the scenes that have to get done to help our customers with their wing needs. Excellent. And Jared and his wife Michaela. Yeah, Jared has been with the companies, you know, since he's eighteen years old. He's been working at the company. He started as a mover driver like myself, and he worked in the warehouse for a while. He's learned the business from the ground up, so you can understand all facets from you know, operations, and now he does sales and he does business development. He's also a special project specialist when it comes to handling lab and science relocation.

6:43 So he's got the he's got the goods when it comes to you know, the specialty let lab moves, if you will. He's also certified in handling chemical packing and things of that, so he's got some background there. We're going to talk about a lot of those specialties. I'm very interested to hear that. Yeah, his wife, Mikhaela, came to us from Trade to Joe. She was a manager at Traded Joe's for for quite a long time, working at many of the traded Joe's stores, and she's working in the outfacing public side of the move, the move management side of the moves. So she's she's part of the team that makes sure that everything happens the way it's supposed to happen. She's she's behind the scenes a lot of times, you know, handling the emails and the correspondents and making sure that everything ticks off the way it's supposed to in a move that's supposed to happen.

7:37 That's really good. And Jordan, and. Jordan, he does sales and operation. So Jordan, like like Jared his brother, he you know, had to stop from the ground up and working in the warehouse and driving the trucks and managing the crews and understanding how the jobs work. Everybody in our company has to go out on a move job to stand what a client goes through. So they start even from the process of going out on sales calls to understand what the client's expectations are. So I really try to get the team involved. So the operations crew goes out with the salespeople, and the salespeople go up with the operation crews, so they have a good understanding of what the expectations are from the customer side of things.

8:25 That's fantastic. How big is your team? Our team goes from anywhere from you know, a five man team to a forty man team depending on the size of the project. Yeah, and of course being part of the Mayflower system, we can reach out and combine all of our assets in the Mayflower system for as much as a client with me. I want to ask a little bit more about your background. Where'd you grow up? So I grew up in Jamaica Plane, which is part of Boston, and you know, it was a great place to grow up around around the city and Jamaica Pond, and you know, up and down Santa Street and in town Boston on the Green Line and the Orange Line.

9:07 So that's my background when it comes to growing up in the city. So a little inside baseball. I grew up in Midfield in the suburbs. But I live now in Rosendale, have been here for thirty almost forty years. So I think we probably know some of the same people. Will talk later, we probably do. Yes, Yeah, in fact, you went to Boston English High School. I did go to Boston English. Yeah, I did go to Boston English during the seventies. It was an interesting time that it was the first year of Boston in the city, so I have that experience. But it was a great I met some great people at Boston English. And the building where I went to high school now is a research lab for HARBD Medical.

9:51 I understand that. Yeah, yeah, Right across from Boston English, I mean right across from Boston Latin are Nemesis when it came to sport. That's right, which, by the way, I love saying this because it's it's pretty cool to me. I coached Pop Warner football youth football for many many years. My younger son went to Boston Latin and played football, so I've been to many not just his years, but many Latin English games. It's the oldest here. It is audi audience. It's the oldest high school football rivalry. Yeah, I can say that rivalry in the nation. Sixteen thirty five was Latin school and English had to be right around that same time time. The rivalry is one hundred something years old, right, Yeah.

10:36 Unfortunately, the winning percentage for Boston English is a little bit lower than the Boston Latin. Well, I was going to let you say that I'm going to let you say that because I'm always on the on the Latin side. But it's a cool game and it's played, as you know, at Harvard Stadium. That's right. Yeah, So what did you you studied really prepared for business at I did? I did study business at Boston English, and that's what my primary concern was. And coming out of college, I was, you know, in high school and going into college. I ended up working for a moving company and JA make a plane?

11:18 Yeah, tell us, how did that happen? It was on a win really. You know. It's like a lot of people in business, they somehow, you know, get introduced to something and they fall in love with the industry and they get I would say, they get hooked and you can't get out. You just get pulled in and you can never get out of it. And that's what happened to me. You know, I fell in love with helping people. And when you're in the moving business, it's a lot about helping people get on their journey to the new space. And that's what it is. It's a journey from start to finish, and it's it can sometimes be a wild journey, but a journey nonetheless.

12:00 Well, did you have any jobs, like youth jobs, any jobs prior to that professional job coming out of college in moving? So what what did you do before moving? Is my question? Really, I did a lot of different jobs when I was a kid, you know, even you know, when it was fashionable, I shined shoes. I delivered it. I delivered I was a paper boy and we did what was called hawking papers off the back of the American truck. We would hawk the papers off of the truck and you know, bring them to local drinking establishments, if you will, and sell the papers at the at the drinking establishments.

12:43 And that's one of the things I did. And there was a youth activities place. I worked for the City of Boston for a while doing b n b L Basketball, which is a summer basketball league in the city of Boston. And I was did Jamaica Plane startup to get that going cool. I worked for the Registry of Motor Vehicles for a short time. You're the guy, Yeah, I'm the guy I was. I was in the cancelation department of the insurance section of the Registry. Oh man, your. Insurance got canceled. I only sent out the. Message yeah, yeah, Well. I was only the messenger. I didn't cancel your insurance.

13:24 Well that was so you delivered papers. You're only the messenger and you mailed the statements or the notification. So still again the messenger. Right, well, we'll still the messenger. Yes, yeah, all right, we're going to take our first break. George right here, everybody. We'll be back in about one minute with George Rolfing of Brookline Transportation. You're listening to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helene on W four CY Radio. That's W four cy dot com. Don't go away, More helpful information is coming right up right here on Winning Business Radio. Have you ever dreamt of being on the radio, Well, now it's your chance. Be a radio show guest on the number one ranked internet radio station and promote you and your business for free. Yes you heard it, Free business advertising right here on W four cy dot com.

14:19 Call five six one five zero six four zero three to one now to get booked on one of our shows. That's five six one five zero six four zero three one. Get your free advertising now. And now back to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helene, presenting exciting topics and expert guests with one goal in mind. To help you succeed in business. Here once again is Kevin Helene. We're back with George Rohlfang, President, owner of Brooks Line Transportation Company moving company. So what was it about moving that you, in your words, kind of fell in love with.

15:08 I think it was the feeling of the completion of a project for a customer, and and the feeling that I got from the customers that they were so you know, they were they were so caring and kind to me when I was doing moves for them, and they would always, you know, comment on how well I did the move and how caring I was with their things. And uh, it was that part of that feeling that you get when you've completed something, that you completed the project and you feel like you've done something for somebody. That's really what, you know, gravitated me toward being hooked in the moving industry.

15:49 And there's a lot of that that happens in our industry. People just they literally get hooked and they stay here for life. So it better be hooked because you bought the company. So tell me about that decision. How did you know you wanted to do that? When did you know? And I mean you were young. From the look of it. Yeah, I was, you know, probably twenty two. I was twenty one going on twenty two. I just got married. My oldest son, Jared, was was born in December the following year. I happened to be reading the Brookline tab. Oh yeah, I remember that paper and saw that moving around maybe yeah, yeah, plug for the tab.

16:36 So I ended up looking at the company. I had already earned enough money to buy a company. Working for the other companies that I worked for, I saved some money and you know, I ended up thinking, hey, I should do this. And when I bought the company, I only had a radius of because movers are regulated. Household goods movers are regulated, and I only have state law. By state law, yes, yeah, at the time we were heavily regulated. I could only go fifteen miles from town Hall Brookline. That was the radius I could go to.

17:20 And the Department of Public Utilities is a regulatory agency that regulates residential household goods movers. So then I applied for a fifty mile radius from town Hall Brookline. So I was allowed that. And you have to go for a hearing. There has to be public needs and necessity. You have to prove that you can do the work that you say you're going to do. You have to publish a tariff, so the rates and everything are published with public Utilities. And then finally I filed for my entire state of Massachusetts if service area to do that, and I was awarded that in nineteen eighty nine. So from the time I bought the company until nineteen eighty nine, we were you know, limited, if you will, in some degree where we could go. That's different today. Times have changed.

18:20 You know. In nineteen eighty movers were deregulated by President Reagan. You know, the Interstate Commerce Commission was shut down, and movers were basically as a free for all out there. So you never know what's going to happen. But the good movers are still complying with the regulation. So there are still regulated movers out there. And Congress does has come back to reregulate a little bit, but not as much as it was. Yeah, I know you've spent a lot of time talking about ethics and moving and within your associations and whatnot. There there had been, I think you said, kind of a wild wester there had been a need for regulation and a need for better behavior and I know you've personally spent a lot of time on that I have.

19:10 I have, and it's still a wild West out there to some degree. So the Internet movers that are unregulated and unethical in the in the way that they do. Things, well, not with Brookline and uh, I know that's a plug. But that's what I've come to understand through people that we mutual, people that we know. So all right, tell me a bit more. I'm just trying to put your contact infos everybody can see how to reach out to you. There we go, got that right. One. We'll share that. When you took over, you were young, you know, experienced in moving, probably not experienced in business yet. What were some of the changes you made when you took over.

19:57 Well, one of the things I I ended up doing through an acquaintance who was an accountant. They introduced me to the Small Business Development Center at Boston College, which is part of the SBA, and I was able to get some more training when it came to, you know, understanding the business aspects of growing understanding you know, some of the tools and things that I needed to to get to run my business, not just not just being a mover in a moving truck anymore. And then of course I joined the Massachusetts Movers Association, and I was, you know, successful in once I joined. The people that I worked with, including competitors that were members of the Association, were very helpful in pointing me in the right direction and doing some of the things that they did to help me understand the moving business, the insurance behind it, all the regulations that came filing you know, rates and tariffs and applying for you know, additional space if you will, to extend my radius from town Hall Brookline to you know, the things that we do now. And you know, some of my best acquaintances and friends are part of that group of movers that helped me originally to help grow

21:29 my understand how to grow. My company, operations, best practices, accounting all of the above, financing. Back office stuff. And then excuse me, I got introduced to Mayflower. Oh yeah, I was going to ask about that. How did you get introduced? It was through the association as being part of the Massachusetts Movers Association, another agent. And you may or may not know that United Van Lines and Mayflower Transit are part of the same parent organization. So our parent organization is Unit Group. So a United agent, a United Vanlines agent, Conlin Moving in Storage introduced me to the team at Mayflower who recruited me to become a Mayflower agent.

22:20 And so what is the benefit of that and what are you required to do. One of the things you're required to do is to become a stockholding agent in the company. They want to make sure that you have some skin in the game, to make sure that you know you're you're you're you're all in when it comes to doing the moves for Mayflower customers. If you will, you do get the benefits of the marketing team at Mayflower. You get the benefits of the back office claims team, the back office registrations and driver recruitment and background checks for team members. You know, that's all consolidated amongst all the Mayflower and United agents throughout the country, into Canada, into Europe. So there's that connection to all of those parts of the Mayflower system that you get as well. And then of course, you know Mayflower being the number one recognized moving brand in America. Yeah, it helps make the phone ring as well. People that I've spoken to over the years, you know their parents used Mayflower in the nineteen fifties and sixties and before that.

23:36 So that helps a lot as well. I'm gonna say that's too early for you to have moved them, but you know, so in eighty nine you became an office moving expert. What's behind that designation? So we I because up till now we've talked to I mean we've touched on but not talked about we will shortly residential moves, right, resident That's correct. That was than's the most To become an office moving expert. It takes more than just going to somebody's office and learning how to move, you know, just going in there moving the stuff. It's a different type of process. You have to understand the complexities of the buildings. You have to work with the teams at both origin and destination, the facilities folks understanding the height of the truck that can.

24:25 Do might need some permitting it on occasion. There are permits, especially in Cambridge on a Sunday, you have to meet noise compliance and they inspect you as you're working at a loading dock certain certain areas. You have to meet those those compliance issues and then there's permits on the street. So if you want to park on Essex to Boston. You have to have moving van permits and that's the same for Somerville and Cambridge as well. So it's not just a matter of showing up and grabbing some stuff. This is a well planned out process. Well planned and we like the more lead time that we can get the better, Although it's it seems like we get short notices, but we would prefer to have a good amount of lead time if we can to get those folks moved and and get things done. And there's a there's there's not just you know, the standard furniture, the file cabinets and the chairs. You've got cubicle walls and electricians they have to come in to disconnect.

25:29 I was just gonna say, all that stuff has to come apart. Got it come apart? The power and then every everything has to be understood that because it has to be rebuilt on the other side. Is it a different crew on the other side. It can't. Well, we we cycle. We do what's called the cycle when we're doing an office move. If as long as it's local, we'll we basically flow load the truck to keep everything on wheels, and we start with what's called the case goods. So we're moving all the furniture first, and we're getting that in makes sense, right, You get all the desk and all those things in first. You know, this is on a job where there may be desk and files and things like that. The cubicles are a different model. It takes a little bit more planning and sometimes you have to have that in place prior to you moving in the rest of the computers and the crates rental crates, so on a typical type of office desk move, we want to get all the case goods over to the site first and get them in place, so when we backfill with the computers and the boxes and crates and chairs, all those things are in place and in the office. And of course it takes so much planning in advance to have the full plens, the maps in place. Color coding guys a visual so we see the color, we see the label, we see the picture of how it's laid out. We're going, you know, we don't have to think, we just go there and do it.

26:53 So it was many years ago, and I don't know who did the move, but there was a company that was growing. We started in Walpole, Massachusetts, ended up on Broad Street. All I remember as an employee was we were told put everything from your desk in a box on your desk, and then Monday we showed up at the new address and everything was exactly where it was supposed to be. It was pretty well, hopefully it was you guys, because it was a really seamless, painless move. But there are times when you have to be aware of uh traffic, not foot traffic, disruption, business disruption, right, minimal disruption. You do a lot after hours in those cases, that's correct. Yeah, a lot of the office in industrial of what we call OL and I moves will happen after ours and because they don't want the foot traffic of all the people going across our path during the move, you know, there's more chance of something happening. And when that when you have that kind of foot traffic. And sometimes we even had detailed offices on the sidewalk when unloading from the sidewalk to cross the sidewalk to get to the building.

27:59 In some case, this is not all cases, we have to have safety office or police detail to watch, you know, the people that are coming across the traffic there so we don't run into them. With a desk or file. So that's why you know, somebody listening might think moving. Why Kevin, did you use the word fascinating. This is why it's fascinating to me. There are so many intricacies and details. All right, George, we're going to take our second break right here, everybody, we'll be back in about one minute with George Rolfing. You're listening to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helene on W four CY Radio. That's W four cy dot com. Don't go away. More helpful information is coming right up right here on Winning Business Radio.

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29:30 Here once again is Kevin Helene. Back with George Rolfing of BTI Brookline Transportation Company Incorporated. And I know, George, you do a lot of specialty moves. In nineteen ninety became a lab and science expert. You're also a corporate relocation specialist. Tell us about some of these more interesting moves. Uh. A couple that were intriguing to me, is you moved a wind tunnel. Yes, we moved the wind tunnel. Incredible. So it came from the Harvard Falds station in Bedford and went to Stanford University. And the wind tunnel was basically to take insects and put them inside the wind tunnel and study them and how they would interact and how they would, you know, turn their wings up and down, you know, to understand how they react to the wind that's you know, going against them. And how did how how they could film them inside the tunnel. So, I mean, there's so many things that are interesting in when we're moving.

30:49 It's it's it's really that's another thing that it makes me, uh, you know, like what I do is that interesting part of the research that the scientists do, and then our are helping them get to their their new location then onto their journey to their new site. So everybody can go to labmovers plural dot com and see some of these moves. Uh, some of the pictures are pretty fascinating. Uh. You you moved a Nobel Prize winner from mg H Mass General to Chicago. Tell us about that, Yeah, doctor Sostack, He's a Nobel Prize winner in medicine and his area of of research is telemeres And I can't tell you what a tell may I can tell you that's his research area because I would like to know what the scientist is doing that we're trying to help move, so I can have a better understanding of, you know, what what needs to get done and how I can help them accomplish that.

31:54 But it was very interesting movement and going to the U Chicago was one of those locations where you can't get a truck in off the regular loading dock. You have to back in through the quad. You have to have a detail, a safety detail walk you through with the truck to get to the loading dock. That's so it's it's never like, oh, it's just you pull into the dock and you're there. There's always an interesting twist. You may not have needed it for the butterfly fly collection, but some of the equipment needed riggers and cranes. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. We did a twenty thousand pounds magnet labo that went up to the University of Ottawa.

32:40 The whole lab went, but one of the pieces was twenty thousand pounds that had to be rigged up, you know, get out of the truck, work with a team that we work with sometimes and get those pieces of equipment out there. So some of it is you know, coordinating it with the right professionals and understanding the needs to get that equipment out to the truck so we can transport it to where it's going and then work with a team there to get it off the truck and get it into place. We do some of that, but there are sometimes even we have to use a professional to help us accomplish what needs to be done for the lab. Could be craning in as well.

33:23 Yeah, I saw like floor jack or a floor crane and somewhere I saw an image of a pretty big crane as well. Yes, what are some of the intricacies of a move across border like Canada. So there's a lot of different things that have to happen when you're coming from across border. When you're doing an international move, there's a thing called harmonized codes. So you can't just ship or import something into the United States without having the right codes and submitting that to customs and have a customs broke clear of that through customs before you can bring that either into the United States or exported out of the United States. And there's certain reasons for that. And being a known shipper, you know, they they know that our team at Unigroup at Mayflower, they have a good understanding of all of the processes when it comes to international relocations.

34:23 So you also moved a rare I mentioned butterflies, a rare butterfly butterfly collection. That was an interesting move. Yeah, So it came from UC Berkeley and I happened to get the award while I was in Spain visiting my brother in Spain. He owns a home in Spain. He was in the Air Force for twenty five years and he met his wife in Spain when he was stationed there, so he bought a home there on vacation with him and my wife and my sister and some family members when I received the award, so I had to cut that short a little bit and fly to California and we literally loaded thousands of butterflies. Of course they were you know, specimens, they weren't five. There were specimens for the professor, and we had to pack those, load them, transport them.

35:21 Very fragile, yes, very fragile. He was worried about that, and of course the crew was alerted to it, so how they handle things. That's part of making sure that when I'm on site on a project like that, whether it's in another state or another another location, I make sure the crew has a good understanding of what needs to be done for the project, and I educate them in advance, and we even do training on site with them prior to actually doing a move like that. So loading it up, transporting it three thousand miles, then it was on to the candle factory at Woodshull Oceanographic Institute. I don't know if you know the candle factory, but that's when they used to you bring in the the oil from the whales and make candles out of it back on the day and would way before my time. But yeah, that's where the professor was moving to that area of of of Hui. So we had to transfer everything off the truck at my warehouse and hanover put it on a smaller truck and then drive it down into Woodshole to get it offloaded into the space down there.

36:37 Yeah, that last part of the road going down right to Woodsholl is very steep for those that aren't to wear. Yeah, it's a tight it's a tight area to get into. And in the whole move only one stamen fell off. One butterfly. Wow. So and of course we used air ride equipment that's specialty for the for the trailer to make sure that it's taking the bump, if you will, across the all across the country. And everybody on the team was fantastic, you know, from start to finish to make sure we've got it done, you know, in the timeframe that we needed. And including the team that wounds all the facilities. Guys, they were great the help that they provided to us.

37:19 So a fair amount of this specialty work comes through. You said you won the award through bid a bid process. RFPs RFQ is something like that. Yes, that's correct, r FPS and RFQs. So we're always on the lookout for projects that like this. If somebody is looking for a move and they're submitting or putting out an RFP or a RFQ, we want to try to answer that and be part of the bidding process so we can, you know, get the details down and present our best case scenario for that particular move. All right, there's one interesting one I'm supposed to ask you about, but for now I want to ask Planetary Science move and the metal research moves.

38:03 So planetary Science move was an interesting one because it came out of the. Base planets are big. I mean, yeah, the planet's that big. So there the professor the scientists was looking at how projectiles would hit the Earth and they had what's called the blast containment system. So they had a forty foot barrel that looked like a gun barrel, all steel, and this was in the basement of a building over in Harvard University and basement there, so we had to everything had to be craned in, so everything had to be craned out. But basically they would shoot a projectile down this forty foot barrel at different speeds, and they would film it blasting into a planet if you will, and the planet exploding, and they would film it to see what would happen if you know, God forbid, something would come down and hit the Earth. So that was the research.

39:06 So we had to pack it all up, crane it all out, put it on a flatbed, and deliver it out to California for that particular scientist. So something like that, is that going to go out a window? Is that going to go up a stairway? It was a hatch in the ground, so that the folks over at Harvard opened up the hatch. We had back into the quad area there again and then the crane would pick up the We had to in addition to the containment system coming up out of the basement, we had to turn it because it came out flat. We had to turn it up like this. It could make it out through the hatch and we could get it out and then again tip it again so we could lay a flat back onto the flatbed.

39:53 So what is the skill set and it's going to be difficult. What's the skill set? And who takes a look at that move and says, yeah, here's the way it's going to happen, almost choreographing that. Well. Usually I'm working with a team that would do something like that because we use known professionals that we've worked with in the past that we trust to crane out something like that. And it's important to understand that when you're asking myself to do a lab move, I have a plethora of companies in addition to my company that I work with that can assist us to help the lab get the job done. Instead of them reaching out to forty different people to help with things, I can be the coordinating person that can help that lab get things done.

40:47 And two more, the Einstein to UC Davis move. Yeah, that was an interesting project going down to Einstein Lab in New York City and having to pack it everything up, bring everything out, put it onto our special Commodities fleet, and then have the special Commodities fleet take that to UC Davis and then of course I fly out, I meet the team there, and then we unload into the lab. And sometimes some of my teammates here in Boston will travel with me to those projects because we have a working knowledge of what the lab needs to have done and several times, including doctor so Stack, they were so you know, glad to see me on site because I knew what we were doing in the project.

41:40 And some of it's like you have an anaerobic chamber or you have a mass spectrauma as part of the move. They want to know it's handled a certain way and they know that they can trust me to get it done, and they're really glad that they have one point of contact during the type of a project that can can be there for their move. All right, there's one more I want to ask you about, because I think there's a story behind this. At least I'm told there's something interesting. Boston Public Libraries piano and noodles. Well, the noodles is something different. I'll tell you about the library. We've been doing work at the Boston Public Library for over twenty five years and part of their needs, if you will, is they have a hall that sometimes the concert pianists will bring in their own piano. We have to get the piano off the stage and into storage at the Boston Public Library and get that in place before that happens, and then again move it back.

42:46 But when they should just bring guitarists in. When we were doing the McKim building, when they were doing the McKim building over if you know the two buildings that there's the Johnson Building which is the newer section of McKim building, which is the older section of the library. When we were when they were doing the renovation, we had to take all of the material out of the stacks in the basement and on some of the floors, bring that over to the Childs Pound Armory, including Continental Congress records and all types of material. But the one thing that they put a police detail on was the comic books because really first edition Superman, Batman and all the comics. So a police officer rode in the truck with us to go deliver those to the location. So the Boston Public Library has many many things, and it's a beautiful library. If you haven't been there, it is, Yeah, it's it's worth going and seeing some of the things there.

43:56 George Washington on Dorchester Heights, so we moved the painting of George Washington in the Washington Room. We had to take it down, pack it up, move it over to the Childstown Armory. Then we brought it back after they did the renovations help hang it, hang it back up. That's a fascinating piece of art. If you've never seen it. I'm not I'll try to see it all right. So tell us a bit more. Who needs your services. You've described a lot of different things, so clearly labs, universities, what other types of businesses, uh, and then even even residential. Yeah, I mean there's a lot of different aspects that we touch, if you will, with our moving services because there's such a breadth of things that we do when it comes to moving. So for example, I was with doctor James Weiss today over at nest Faio. They have a new new site that they're developing in Chilestown and that's incubator space. So it's not the smallest incubator space, but he's got some you know, brand new facility over there that is beautiful. So if you're a scientist and you need space with all the equipment and all of the stuff already there, they can do that and we just move over your freezers or your contents and your computers and things like that. Then you've got the expanding bio labs that are growing that need to get everything over from one space to another, and they need us

45:26 to plug in their freezers to keep the content, keep the contents inside the freezers. So we have a truck with a generator, and the generator pouse electricity, and we have a backup system that's built into the truck so if we need to, we can grab that power and keep the the items cold as we're transporting them from one point to another. I don't know if it was that one or another move, but I saw where there were some really close tolerances and very low temperatures that you had to maintain. Pain are certain things. One was like minus thirty or something like that, fair minus minus ad, minus eighty minus ad.

46:09 The typical freezers that you'll find in a lab is minus at minus twenty and then four degrees celsius, which is like thirty nine degrees fahrenheit. So they cannot lose power. They cannot lose power. They have to be powered. And during them during that that move, you know there they're polities, and we have data systems that monitor that if for some reason, and because it is a piece of equipment, they can fail. You know, they can feel even during the move for some reason, you know they're they're they're just some some of these freezers are, you know, twenty twenty five years old. Yeah, it's not that they feel because we're moving them. They just fail because they're twenty five years old. So sometimes we have to have backups to that as well. If we have something that old, we usually recommend a backup in the truck already up to temperature in case something happens like that.

47:06 I wasn't as finicky about moving at twenty five now that I'm over sixty. Yeah, I get it. So it maybe twenty five is sixty in freezer years, right, all right, you're very active in your trade associations. You're also you're actually at today the offices of Mass Biotech. Tell us about that affiliation. You're members of Mass A member of Mass Biotech. Yes, here, I am at the Mass bio Hub and they have you know, space available for those those that are members that can use the space when they're in the Kendle Square area. So that's where I am over at Kendle Square. And the affiliation that you know, it was something that was the progression of our business as we understood the need to get our name out there and to be part of the community of people that we're working with so they know that we're vested in the community as well. So we felt in this file was the best place to be for us. So they can see us as a forward thinking company, training, learning, finding new things, understanding new things, and being part of the the community in the Cambridge biotech area, Boston biotech area.

48:19 And for those who don't know, Kendall Square is really one of the key hubs for life science, biotech, et cetera. That's correct. So last question that went quickly, Uh, what is why tell tell the people in the in the viewing and listening audience is why they may want to reach out to you and the best way to contact you. We put in the scroll. Uh, there's an email address and a couple of websites there. I mean you should, you should reach out to myself or Jared or Jordan's and our companies because we care. You know, we care about your company, We care about your goods. And there are times when we are moving. In addition to the equipment, we're moving the staff, we're moving the people, the relocation package. We bundle it all together.

49:02 Being part of the Mayflower system, we can put that all together. We just did a relocation recently from Maryland to Massachusetts where we moved the lab and we moved all the scientists and the research team that came along with it. So we care. That's one of the reasons why. And you have a trusted professional that's interested in making sure that your move is going to go as smooth as possible and that we're going to get you to your final location without the hassles that you might find with other companies. We can handle just about. Anything, outstanding. Thank you for your time. I really appreciate you being here.

49:43 Thanks Kevin, that really went by fast. It does, it really does. Thank you. I'll talk soon. Hang on just for a minute. And for everybody else, thanks for listening and watching. This is the show about business and business challenges. If you've got concerns about the growth of your company, free to reach out to me on LinkedIn or Facebook. You can find me at Winning Business Radio one of my many email addresses, Kevin at Winning Businessradio dot com. Our company is Winning Incorporated. We're part of Sandler Training and we develop sales teams at the high achievers and sales leaders into true coaches and mentors. We're not right for everybody, but Hey, maybe we should have a conversation. Thank you again to producer and engineer one for another job well done. Be sure to join us in two weeks on Monday, November fourth, I'll be traveling next week. We'll have a repeat show playing on the twenty eighth, but on the fourth my guests will be Richard Blank, He's the CEO of Costa Rica Call Center. Until then, this is Kevin helen In you've been listening to Winning Business Radio with your host, Kevin Helena. If you missed any part of this episode, The podcast is available on Top four Podcasting and iHeartRadio.

50:57 For more information and questions, go to the Winning Business Radio dot com or check us out on social media. Tune in again next week and every Monday at four pm Eastern Time to listen live to Winning Business Radio on W four CY Radio W four cy dot com. Until then, let's succeed where others have failed and win in business with Kevin Halenan and Winning Business Radio